


Traitor

by Fibi94



Series: Universe Delta [9]
Category: Designated Survivor (TV)
Genre: Alex Is Alive, F/M, fingers crossed it actually happens, set during the season 2 finale, someone dies down the road
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-17 01:48:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 21,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14177904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fibi94/pseuds/Fibi94
Summary: When a hurricane hits D.C. Tom Kirkman finds himself picking up the ruins of what he thought he knew, everything gets turn...





	1. Suspicions

Chapter 1: Suspicions

Alex looks at Dr. Roberts, she’s a woman in her forties that for the past three and a half months became such a constant presence in her life, it felt a bit weird for her to have to say goodbye, she said she was ready, and in a way Alex felt ready as well. “So this is out last session, how do you feel?” the doctor asks, Alex smiles and looks at the window on her left. It was a sunny day, such different from the last week which was cold and rainy.

“Good, different but good.” She responds, she doesn’t know how else she’d explain it, she wasn’t who she was before the truck plummeted into her car but she was better, she smiled, walked around, had her missed date with Tom. She was better, she really was.

“Different, well that was expected. How about the pain you were telling me about is it gone?” Alex smiles, ever since the accident she had learned to live with pain, pain in her legs as they healed, pain in her chest from the broken ribs, on her shoulder that was dislocated. It became a daily thing almost, where at least once a day she’d have a good brush with pain. It got better these days, all but the pain in her ankles was gone.

“Mostly, I still get it when I walk in heels for long, which as a first lady can’t avoid much.” The doctor laughed with her, it was weird, they both tried to ignore that Alex was the first lady of the united states and to a degree they did, they would meet in a pretty unassuming room in the white house on the third floor, a room between a storage room and old living room, not overlooking anything special, just the family garden. For a moment they both could ignore the reality.

“How about Tom, you told me at the beginning that you were worried about him. Are you still?” Alex bites her lip, she knew this question was going to come up eventually, Tom was on the brink right after her accident, she would see him slowly fading away day by day, plugged by indecisiveness and fear, not sleeping or eating well. She was terrified at the beginning and mentioned it to Dr. Roberts.

“To some extent, he’s better I won’t deny that, having his brother around helped him a lot, and the power outage pushed him to chose a new Vice President, which was also good, but I’m still afraid he’s” she stops taking a couple of deep breaths. For all the recovering she did and even he did, Tom was still not willing to talk about the root of his problems. He wouldn’t talk about the bombing, or his shooting or her accident, casually brushing them off, ignoring them and erasing them from their history entirely. “Well he still won’t talk about the bombing or getting shot or even my accident”

Dr. Roberts takes some notes; she’s silent for a moment, Alex remembers how uncomfortable that made her, now she thinks she’ll almost miss it. “So he’s not on the ledge but he’s not out of the woods either.”  She points out.

“Yeah.”

“Have you thought about suggesting he has therapy? Maybe if he feels more comfortable with you being there.” The doctor’s suggestion takes Alex by surprise, she never thought of therapy as an option mostly because Tom was so unwilling to talk that she always thought it would be a waste of money.  “You mean couple’s therapy? But we don’t have any problems.” She hears the irony in her words. It’s almost as if a small devil in her ear screams the word ‘yet’ over and over again, reminding her how close they came to actually divorcing since moving to the white house.

“Not yet you don’t but if he keeps ignoring those things you might.” Alex looks down, she hadn’t thought about it that way. She always keeps forgetting as if by a coping mechanism how much they both changed in such little time.

“He might change?” she doesn’t know why she asks this, it’s not as if she doesn’t know the answer, the answer is yes, of course it is. “Is that what you are telling me?”

“Well you both change what I am telling you is that he might change for worse.” It scares her, it scares her to her knees. She finds herself admitting it for the first time in ages that Tom’s fear that he’ll turn into his father is her fear as well. Simply because she’s been there, she had the asshole alcoholic boyfriends, boyfriends that were manipulative and emotionally abusive and last thing she needed was to find herself there again, but Tom was her everything and she didn’t know if she could leave as easily as she did Jeffrey for a example.   

“I’ll try and talk to him.” she tells the doctor, there’s another silence between the two of them, once again Robins was just taking some notes and Alex just found herself looking at the tiling on the floor. She’ll have to admit that it was ugly, old and worn out the room used so much as a storage room that the wood was scratched and worn out. These days it was usually covered by carpet but there was a small opening between the carpet and couch that you could see the damage.

“What about you? What are your plans for the future?” Robins asks her startling her. Alex takes her time thinking of her question, what were her plans for the future? She realizes for the first time in ages she has no plans whatsoever.

“I have no idea what the future holds.

* * *

 

She finds herself reading again and again all the reports, all the intel, everything she could find on Damian, she doesn’t know why she’s doing this again and again, what the point was, but she can’t help herself. Something doesn’t make sense, everyone tied it up with a neat bow that Damian was the one that framed the first lady and the one who hired the driver to plummet into the motorcade but something wouldn’t sit well with her, some pieces to the puzzle were missing and no matter how much everyone ignored them she couldn’t. Something was still off.

“Hannah?” Hannah gets startled by the sound of Chuck’s voice, she almost jumps up, closing the folder she was reading in haste before she even realized who had entered the room. She sees her friend looking at her worried across from her desk; he studies her trying to find out why she was so distracted.

“Chuck, I didn’t hear you coming in” she tells him as soon as she catches her breath.

“Yeah I was a bit late, what are you studying there?” he smiles and leaves his backpack next to his desk sitting down on his chair he smiles at her, it outs her to an ease, through it all Chuck was always there by her side, so much like the sibling she wanted but never really got.

“Nothing, some suspicions of mine, it might be nothing.” She tells him, realizing that she tries to reassure herself more than him, he didn’t know what she found; he couldn’t be worried after all. 

Chuck smiles and leans back at his chair; “If you help though…” he starts looking at her with a knowing and reassuring smile on his face.

“You’ll be the first to know.”

* * *

 

Tom raises his head, his brother enters the oval office in his worn out blue jeans and his own old worn out Metallica shirt, he narrows his eyes; Trey once again went through his shirts getting what he liked and not asking. Maybe it was time for his brother to move out. He shakes his head, taking off his glasses and tries to ignore the stolen t shirt. “Trey, hey, I don’t have long but I got them to bring us lunch here” he tells his brother, Trey smiles and follows him to the dining room next to his private office, looking at the weather outside he regrets having lunch inside, outside the weather seemed so nice for once.

“Wow that’s one of the perks of being president huh?” he turns around and sees his brother’s shocked look, remembering that they never actually had dinner or lunch here and Trey had never visited this place.

“The private dining room? yeah.” Tom sits down on his chair on the top of the table, the food waiting for them already. He studies his brother while eating, something was different with Trey these days, there was something in his face that confused Tom.

“What’s going on with you?” he asks him, Trey nearly chokes with his food before responding a little too fast and defensively for Tom’s tastes. “Nothing! I don’t understand what you mean.” Tom smiles mischievously he knows this defensive stance all too well.

“You have this spark in your eyes, that,” he stops, leaning back to his chair, letting his brother fidget in his seat for a while. “I’ve seen that before!” Trey’s eyes widen, and he protests loudly, “I don’t have a spark in my eyes!”

“Yes you do!” Tom stops, he realizes exactly when and where he had seen that before, he’d seen it on his brother just once, and on himself every day since he met Alex. “Trey are you in love?” he asks his brother who throws his hands in the air and signs loudly. It was amusing to Tom, how much like a child his almost forty year old brother was acting.

“Why do I still talk to you?” Trey asks in frustration, it makes Tom just laugh louder, “Because Alex asked, I am your big brother and you love me.” Trey narrows his eyes, “Not right now I don’t.” he tells him through his teeth, it makes Tom only laugh more, which frustrates Trey more.

Tom stops and tries to gather himself, “Trey, come on you can tell me.” He says to his brother who even thought tried to act annoyed still had an amused smirk on his face.

“Well I am seeing someone new. I can’t…” Tom cuts him off before he starts rumbling incoherently, “Do you love her?” he asks her. Trey leaves his fork down and looks at his brother with a serious expression for once.

“I think so.” He simply says, Tom reaches for his brother taking his hand, “Trey, look at me.” His brother looks up from his food, “There’s no think in those things Trey.”

 His brother smirks and nods, “Yeah, I… I do.” He says, it makes Tom smile, he had no idea how to react to this other than be delighted, it scares him a bit, he won’t lie, Trey has a lot of issues, a lot more than he does to be honest, and most of all he has commitment issues, that’s why he never got married and was barely able to hold a long term relationship, he tries to get rid of the negative thoughts in his head and just be happy for him, “Who is she? Do I know her?” he asks.

“I’m not gonna tell you.” Tom fakes a very good, in his opinion, shocked face, he was sure that would be the answer he would get.

“Why not?” he asks.

“Because.”Tom chuckles, this used to be Trey’s trademark answer when they were kids and Tom realizes it drives him as mad now as it did back then.

“That’s not an answer Trey!”

“And I am not telling you anything more Tom!” the two of them find themselves in a staring match “Fine!” They stay in silence for the rest of the meal, quietly eating, for once both feeling normal, nothing out of place as two brothers just spend some time together.

Trey get’s up to leave and let Tom get back to work when Tom calls his name and stops him, “What?” he asks, “Just know that if you ever want to tell me I’m here.”

Trey smiles “I know.” He turns and opens the door, “Go back to work old man!” he calls over his shoulder.

* * *

 

Tom walks in the oval; Ethan was waiting for him already, “Ethan! Welcome!” he shakes the other man’s hand, “Mr. President.” Tom sits down “Please take a seat.” He tells to the other man, he sits down across from his desk, “Is this the report of the investigation?” Tom asks, this investigation on Cornelius was a thorn on his side; he was conflicted every day, on one hand he knew that Cornelius was the leak on the negotiations but he couldn’t believe that he leaked about the Icarus investigation or Alex’s subpoena for no other reason but his love for Alex, he has this weird relationship with his wife almost a father daughter one.

“Yes, Secretary Moss is not found liable for anything criminal although I understand that his actions still cause a lot of problems for you in the PR department.” Ethan says, he passes him a quite thick envelope, Tom lets it by his desk, he wants to open it and read it but he stops himself.

“He did, but it’s good to know that he isn’t criminally liable, I guess I have to call him and tell him he’s out of the dog house.”Tom mentions Ethan chuckles and nods, Tom came to like the man, he was a hard worker, and a fair judge of people, he remembers his name coming up for the Supreme Court but can’t remember why he wasn’t chosen in the end.

“Well that’s not for me to say.” He says, trying actively to hide his smile.

“Of course.” He looks at the note on his desk by Emily about how he shouldn’t do what he was thinking of doing but he rips it in half. Looking at the man in front of him getting his briefcase ready he decides to do exactly what he wanted to from the beginning. “Ethan, would you be interested in a promotion?” he tells him.

Ethan stops, his hands frozen over the lock of his briefcase, “Promotion sir?” he asks shocked, Tom smiles, “I would like you to come on as my deputy attorney general” he says, Ethan’s eyes open widely. He definitely didn’t expect that but the smile on his face was telling Tom pretty much all he needed to know.

“You realize this is going to cause just another PR problem for you sir?” he asks, his voice showed his amusement, he knows his reputation, Tom’s well known by this point as the man who trips over his own two feet, both metaphorically and actually at this point. Tom smiles, he had this exact conversation with his staff, Emily and Lyor were against it, they thought it would be seen as pay for play; Aaron and Seth though were in favor of it, mostly because they both knew that Ethan West was already on the short list for this job ever since he took over.

“Yes, my staff has told me this time and time again, but I also know you are good, and honorable. I’ve studied your history, your decisions as a district attorney, you are independent and I was always keen on having you join the administration.” He tells him, it’s the truth, and it makes the other man pause for a while, he stays silent, and Tom respects it, thinking about the offer, while Tom was just begging anyone who would listen that he would come on.

“If you are sure for that sir I would be honored to join.”Tom shakes his hand, a huge smile on his face; this was the answer he wanted to hear after all.

“Welcome aboard Ethan.” He tells him, Ethan smiles back, it makes Tom feel as if he would scream right now, it’s so rear these days for him to get what he actually wanted.

“Thank you sir!”


	2. The Warning

Hannah gets startled when her phone starts ringing in the middle of the night, she wasn’t really sleeping but she had finally settled down for the day. “Wells.”

“Hannah, it’s Chuck, we’ve lost Damian.” The glass of wine falls from her hand and shatters on the floor. The wine and glass hit her legs and she jumps back. “Shit!” she curses under her breath.

“What?” she asks Chuck in shock as she walks to the kitchen to get a towel to wipe off the wine.

“We’ve lost him, he killed the agents, he’s gone.” She closes her eyes and leans back to the wall, clutching the towel to her chest. she knew that this was going to happen, she couldn’t trust Damian she told everyone that but he wasn’t safe in prison and John had assigned him a protection detail and a safe house.

“Shit!”

* * *

 

Hannah couldn’t sleep the whole night, she would twist and turn the whole night in her bed, she couldn’t get it out of her head that with Damian on the loose she’s in danger. She called Aaron before she left for the office; she was worried that Damian would turn on them. She parked her car in her normal seat and walked to the entrance, she knows that the white house is the safest building in the world but she still feels like someone is following her. She shakes the thought as she watches the door closing behind her and walks to her office in the first basement. Chuck wasn’t there yet, and she doesn’t blame him, she’s not sure if anyone else but the marines in the entrances are there.  Looking at her desk her files are there waiting for her, she remembers that she still has to find who the traitor is.

She spends most of her morning looking through her files; Chuck came in but didn’t bother her as she was infatuated with the files. She went through all the data she has and finds herself stuck in the same place, the one place where she can’t trust anyone.

“Hannah, it’s John, we’ve cleared the safe house wanna come over and check it?” she smiles at the phone, she and John had managed to repair their broken relationship since what happened with the Icarus investigation, although him using the whole thing to gain political capital, she had finally managed to trust him enough to let him in to the protection and investigation on Damian. She’s not ready to let him know of the traitor yet but she knows she might have to if she lets him and the other agents search the safe house. “I’ll be there in a while, please tell them not to touch anything alright?” John chuckles from the other side of the line “Sure thing” he hangs up the dialing tone is cold and Hannah realizes that she misses his voice even though he just hanged up.   

She drove to the safe house as fast as she could; John is the only one on the scene waiting for her at the door. “Hey John.” He smiles.

“Hey Hannah” he says smiling.

“I’ll take it over from here.” She tells him and he nods. She watches him walk to the elevator and he pauses for a moment turning around “Will you be alright here?” she smiles as convincingly as she can “Sure.”

“Be careful” he tells her as he walks in the elevator. Hannah waits until the doors are completely closed before walking inside the apartment. Everything around seemed almost sterilized, she went through everything before, after she had shot him on Christmas, she chuckles, why the hell did they bring him back to his own apartment for goodness’ sake? He knew the place by heart of course he was going to find a way to escape easier.

She takes her time almost tearing the place down, throwing the paintings to the floor looking for hidden safe, moving couches and bookcases but nothing. There was nothing hidden anywhere. She walks to the bedroom, she tried to avoid this room last time as well but she had to search it now. She moves almost everything and nothing. It makes her desperate, where else could he have hidden things? She walks in the bathroom; he is too smart to have hidden things in the medicine cabinet. Her eyes fall on the toilet though, she remembers him telling Chuck, bragging about how he had hidden his passport and gun in the flush and she wonders if he did the same thing again.

She carefully opens the lid and is almost shocked when she sees the well sealed off plastic folder neatly placed in there. She takes it out and uses one of the towels to dry it off a little before walking to the living room; she sits on one of the kitchen stools and takes out the documents. She nearly falls off when she sees what’s in them, “Fuck!” she curses, her voice echoing around the nearly empty apartment. This is a huge blow; looking at the evidence in front of her she finally can limit her list of suspects.  

“How the hell he found those?” she asks to herself. These are all the routes Alex’s motorcade could take on the night of the accident, she remembers it clear as day, she was right here in the very same apartment when she saw the general hysteria at the streets below, now she knows that the accident was what caused it, the apartment was just a block away from where the truck plummeted into Alex’s car. Suddenly it clicks, why this specific spot was chosen, those papers make two things clear, and one of those is that Damian chose this spot so he could watch. He wanted to see the accident unfold. Also Alex was right when she told her that she thought she had seen the truck again since leaving the FBI building.

She feels some tears falling from her eyes and almost burning her skin as they roll down her face and fall on her shirt. She once again comes face to face with the consequences of her actions, once again the realization that if she wasn’t so blinded by Damian nothing from all the things that happened would have happened. She gathers all the papers hastily and walks out of the apartment locking the door and taking the stairs, once in her car she considers going back home but her hands turn the wheel to the other direction leading her straight to the white house.

* * *

Tom didn’t sleep well last night, something just bothered him enough to wake him up at 3am and keep him awake till he decided to quit trying and come to work at 5am. He was thankful that he hadn’t woken Alex up, she needed sleep much more than he did, she had just stopped having nightmares of the accident just a mere month ago he didn’t want to bother and worry her with his troubles. At least not for now, there will be a time sooner rather than later that he will find himself in a twist and ask her for help, comfort and a willing shoulder to lean on but now it’s not the time.

He was working for some time, finally managing to navigate through weeks of ignored paperwork that Emily had dumped at his desk. He doesn’t know why she needs his approval to hire a new calligrapher or whatever the job of the week was but he didn’t say anything just singed the forms. His father in law always told him to ‘never fight with a woman unless you are willing to beat the consequences’ and he wasn’t a foul to defy him.  

Around 7am Aaron walks in the room, he looks disheveled, his suit for the first time he knows him wrinkled, having already ditched the jacket and with his hair wildly flying to almost all directions. “Sir, we have a major problem.” He tells him.

“What?” Tom asks, he’s stands up from his desk and walks closer to Aaron, the younger man looked ready to collapse, so Tom wanted to be close just in case that happened. He places a hand on his arm, trying to somehow anchor him to reality. Aaron takes a couple minutes trying to catch his breath, and runs a hand through his hair, messing them up even further.

“There’s a category 5 hurricane coming to D.C.” he tells Tom as soon as he can form a sentence.

“When is it expected to make landfall?” Tom asks, the information shocks him enough to lose his step, he was in NY when Sandy hit, and he knows full well what a category 5 hurricane means for many of the buildings in D.C. that weren’t build to withstand those forces.

“In a week sir.”

“A week!” he says, he feels his throat closing, a week is just about enough time to get everyone out of the city and that’s it. He walks to the couch and sits down, everything starts spinning around him, he now realizes why Aaron looks the way he looks right now.

“Yeah, there are some chances that it might change direction but chances are that hurricane Emma will make direct landfall.” Tom winches at those words.

“We need to start informing about evacuation plans for the city residences, set up shelters and make sure those shelters have enough food for all.” Aaron takes out his notebook, for a moment Tom is taken aback, this is something that looks almost natural, it slightly makes him wonder what would have happened if he hadn’t left Aaron to resign, he seems to be working fast.

“Yes sir.” He says closing his notebook.

“Let’s get to work, this is gonna be a big one.” He nods and turns around to leave, standing by the door, both men realize that they were alone in the room “Do you want me to inform the rest of the staff sir?”

Tom looks at him, almost confused, “No, just Emily, she it’s her job Aaron, thank you for informing me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading guys!!! please let me know if what you think.


	3. Willful ignorance

Alex walks down the west wing halls, although they never could be described as peaceful the last couple days were extremely busy, she barely saw Tom, usually he came upstairs long after she falls asleep and leaves way before she wakes up. She doesn’t blame him even her staff in the east wing were worried and working overtime trying to help Tom’s staff and local authorities with the staffing shelters. Even Alex was being driven from place to place giving speeches on why and how the people should proceed with evacuation.

She had some time before the next interview, this time via satellite with ‘The View’ just repeating the same thing to a boarder audience, and decided to just go and see Tom in his office. She walks in the outer office, Wyatt seems exhausted with dark circles under his eyes, she smiles to the young man who can smiles back “Is he busy?” she asks, “Not more than usually”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” She opens the door to the oval sneaking in, Tom was leaning over some papers on his desk, his back to her, she could see a pen on his ear just like he used to carry his cigarettes when they first met. He has ditched his jacket and his sleeves are rolled up revealing some of the tattoos on his arms. She smiles and walks closer, placing an arm on his shoulder, “Hey honey, you busy?” he looks at her and a smile grew on his face. He leans forward placing a short kiss on her lips, “Hey, kinda yeah.” He was tired, she could see that, but he still turns to the papers scattered around his desk “I couldn’t sit any more, my ass started hurting for god’s sake.” Alex chuckles, he's still trying to crack jokes at the face of certain disaster. She places a hand on his back, running it up and down, actually feeling his muscles relaxing.

“I heard hurricane is not changing direction.” She tells him, he hangs his head low, they had a hope of the hurricane changing directions even at the eleventh hour but their hopes were futile.

“Yeah, we need to get ready to evacuate too, actually I meant to tell you that earlier,” he says, Alex nodes, Mike had warned her yesterday of the new development, he knew that Tom was really preoccupied that he would probably forget about telling her at all. “Secret service is moving us to Camp David no matter what happens, they need us to be away from here.” He continues, she notices how he scribbles down on what seem to be the blueprints of various government buildings, probably considering which of those can work as shelters. She knows that if the secret service let him he was going to use the white house itself as shelter.

“Ok,”

“Ok?” he seems almost shocked, as if he expected a different answer, and maybe he was. She can see the wheels in his brain working overtime a small smile on his lips as he asks “Mike?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna go talk to the kids, tell them to start packing things.” She turns to leave but Tom catches her hand, she stops and looks down, his knuckles almost turning white from how tight he was holding her. She knows the look on his face, he is worried, it makes her walk closer again.

“Thank you.” He murmurs, his voice low, almost going unheard.

“We’ll be fine Tom. You’ll see.” She tries to reassure him, she knows it’s not working, at least not to the extent she would have liked but she tries nonetheless.

“We will.” It’s like he tries to make himself believe to his words by repeating it, she knows his ticks, she knows him too well, that’s how she knows it doesn’t work.

“I’ll let you get back to work.” She tells him, but lingers for a while, just in case he’s not ready to get back to work, she’s willing to be late for ‘The View’ even if the media shreds her afterwards.

“I love you.” He says, he gives her hand one last squeeze, it’s like he’s trying to get the last pieces of strength he can get before letting go.

“I love you too.” She kisses his cheek and leaves, not really looking back, not seeing him looking at her back and at the closed door for a good full minute before turning back to work.

* * *

 

Alex doesn’t know why she lingers in the west wing longer, she didn’t have anything else to do, she had prepared for the interview long before even leaving to see Tom and with the kids still in school she just had nothing else to do. Christopher, Elainor’s husband was at work at the moment as well so she couldn’t bother him either, she’s slightly pissed of that he could work but she couldn’t, but apparently second ladies, or in this case gentleman, can work while first ladies just devote themselves to hosting parties and redecorating the freaking white house.

Looking at her watch she realizes that she has some time left and decides to visit Kendra, she’s probably the one with the least to do right now, lawyers don’t have a lot to do with disaster preparation and relief after all. She’s about to turn right when she heard noise coming from Emily’s office. She gets intrigued and walks closer trying to hear what they were saying better.

“I don’t care Lyor!” she hears Emily yelling, a soft smile forms on Alex’s lips, how knows what Lyor wanted her opinion on in the middle of the crisis that made Emily explode.

“Emily.” Lyor tries again, his tone confuses Alex, this isn’t normal Lyor tone, this is serious Lyor tone, she’s heard it probably just once before in her life when she was in hospital.

Emily cuts him off saying, “Listen deal with this I have to leave.” And storms out of the office, she barely notices Alex standing there as she walks down the corridor and to Alex’s surprise leaves the building.

It takes her a couple minutes to gather her wits before entering the office, finding Lyor still standing there, dumfound.

“Lyor, what happened?” she asks him, Lyor looks at her, he was almost too shocked to react. “I… I was telling her that most of the shelters don’t have access, people with mobility issues wouldn’t be able to get inside.” He says, he’s shocked, looking around like he doesn’t know what hit him.

“Lyor, don’t worry about the accessibility issues, I’ll talk with Tom, if he hasn’t found out already and it’s going to be fixed.” He looks at her taking a deep breath

“Really ma’am?”

“Really Lyor.” he smiles, the worry she had seen slightly disappearing, it’s funny to her even at this hour he worries about pr, pr that will save lives, “Thank you” he says looking frantically for his phone probably already moving to the next crisis approaching or already here, he walked out of the room, slightly stumbling on the door before disappearing.

Alex looks around the room, she couldn’t believe what she just heard, how could Emily not listen to that, she wouldn’t have blamed her if she blew up on Lyor for any other reason she could she could have understood, and even sympathized with her, but given the severity of the issue and the situation they are in she is worried, sure Lyor didn’t worry out of the goodness of his heart, probably in any other case he wouldn’t have worried at all, this is something that could reflect bad on the administration and therefore he cared. It’s still an issue that should have worried Emily thought and it’s definitely an issue that will worry and affect Tom.

* * *

 

Alex was fidgety the whole time, she thought about going to Tom, letting him know about Emily’s behavior but she wasn’t sure it was important. She knew Emily, she knew her for years, sure there must be another reason, a logical reason why she reacted the way she did. In the end she tells Tom about the ramps in the shelters but kept her suspicions to herself. After all the oval office wasn’t the place for that.

She hears the door open, turns around seeing Tom walking in, she’s surprised, he usually doesn’t come back so early. “Hey you’re back early.” She walks to him; Tom wraps his arms around her waist burying his face on her shoulder.

“Yeah, I wanted to talk to the kids myself.” He says, his voice muffled by her clothes. They stay like that for a while; she could feel everything washing over him. he's tired, exhausted and she doesn’t blame him.

He takes a deep breath, Tom let’s go, taking a step back, his eyes are almost blood red from the sleep deprivation, “Tom.”

“What is it?” he asks her, she sees the man in front of her, it’s a battle with herself, a battle that she’s not sure winning or losing at the moment. She knows she needs to tell him, he’s working himself to the ground doing things that weren’t his job, Emily should be looking over the building blueprints and have the people responsible installing the ramps or fixing the heating, these weren’t jobs for the president.

“I might be wrong but I think there’s something wrong with Emily.” She tries to word her suspicions a little differently, she knows how much Tom loves Emily, he has treated her like family ever since they first started working together. “Again I might be wrong but she blew up on Lyor and then just disappeared in the middle of the day.” She sees him he’s trying to fight the thought, she knows him well enough to know that.

“She’s probably worried we’re all on edge these days.” He says, she smiles, “Yeah, maybe just could you please make sure she’s alright?” she asks him, maybe she overreacted in the end, after all Tom works with Emily all day, so maybe he knows something she doesn’t. It doesn’t calm her down, and she tries, she really tries to ignore the little voice in her head just telling her that something wasn’t right.

“I will. Don’t worry.” He tells her smiling, his smile is forced, a little too forced, maybe what she said got through him, maybe not…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading guys!!! Please let me know what you think.


	4. Ignorance is bliss

Alex tried really hard to ignore her suspicions about Emily all night and day, but she couldn’t, this morning was a much calmer one so she decided visiting Kendra. It’s almost funny how closer she grew with the other lawyer, apparently you don’t spent three weeks in hospital with someone and not get close. She knocks her door, and pokes her head in, “Kendra I am so sorry to bother you is this a bad time?” she asks, Kendra raises her head, the scuff in her face turning into a smile when she sees her, “No, no please come in!” Alex walks in and sits on one of the chairs across from her. “Anything I can help you with?”

“You’re friends with Emily right?” Alex asks. Kendra sits back; she sees her fidgeting with her hands.

“Yes ma’am, as friends as you can be with your boss anyway.” She tries to joke, Alex nods, she knows that face, “You mean as friends as you can be with Emily.” She says, Kendra raises her head looking at her with wide eyes, she apparently didn’t expect her to criticize Emily and that makes Alex wonder how blinded Tom was to Emily’s faults that even his own staff wouldn’t dare to point them out. “I’m not my husband Kendra I’m not blinded to the fact that Emily is not an easy person to be around anymore.”

“She wasn’t always like that was she?” Kendra says leaning on her elbows, Alex wonders, was there a time when Emily was different? She isn’t sure, but she just can’t remember a time when Emily was different, maybe there never was.

“No, or maybe she was and we never saw it.” Kendra nods, she knows that she wants to say something more but she stops herself. “What was it that you wanted to tell me ma’am?” she asks after a few moments of silence between them.

“I want you to keep an eye on Emily. A close eye.” She says emphasizing on the last three words.

“Is there anything wrong?” Kendra asks, Alex sees it in her eyes, Kendra seemed as if she almost expected something like that to appear on her way.

“I don’t know, but she started acting different. She blew up on Lyor yesterday and then disappeared in the middle of the day, and one thing I know is that during this time no one leaves in the middle of the day, not even Tom, so you know.” Kendra starts taking notes, actually taking it seriously; it makes Alex’s paranoia seem less out of the blue.

“That made you suspicious?” Kendra asks, she starts biting the end of her pen, making Alex smile a little.

“Yeah.”

“Have you talked to the president?” Kendra asks, Alex chuckles, “Yes but um…” she smiles, this wasn’t going to sound well, but she doesn’t know how else to word it so she wouldn’t sound like a nagging wife desperate for her husband’s attention. “I don’t think he took it seriously.” She says looking away; she doesn’t want to see Kendra’s eyes when she does think that.

“I understand.” Kendra says, her tone makes Alex look at her, there’s no smirk or anything like that on her face, instead her features are twisted with worry as she says, “Don’t worry I’ll look into it.”

* * *

 

Kendra tried to get back to work after Alex left but couldn’t focus on the documents in front of her. Looking at the date she sees that she can push them back for a couple days before filing so she just puts them back into her drawer and pulls the notes she kept closer, reading over them again, she can’t help but feel something nagging her. She doesn’t know the first lady long enough that’s for sure, and their relationship started out at best as rocky but she knows a couple things to know that Alex does not overstate anything. On the contrary she might understate some.

She takes her notebook and get’s up, she’s going to look into this on her own, see with her own eyes Emily’s behavior. She walks by her office only to find it empty, her assistant, Kate was tiding some things up “Kate where’s Emily?” she asks.

“I don’t know Miss Daynes, she said she has to run some errands.” Kendra takes a step back, “And does she run errands often?” Kate bites her lip, not sure whether or not she should answer, “Kate you won’t be in trouble just tell me.”

“More and more recently. She’s gone for hours some times.” Kendra nods and just dismisses Kate, almost bolts out of the room.

Kendra looks around the room, nothing looks out of place, everything looks almost exactly as they should be. She wonders though what would make Emily leave so often that her staff noticed while the city was preparing for a category 5 hurricane? Chuck could probably find out what was going on

Something clicks, she remembers what Emily used to find the leaker, but she’s not going to do what she accused Emily doing, she was going to go over it the right way. She starts walking back to her office, it’s eating her up, could there be another way that she could find what she wanted? A turned on tv catches her attention on the left, Seth is just finishing his briefing. She smirks, of course Seth would know. She turns around and walks to his office, she sees him walking in just as she turns around the corner.

“Hey Seth, you got some time?” she says poking her head in, Seth looks up from some papers and smiles at her, “Yeah, come in.” he says.

“This might be uncomfortable but I have to ask you something.” Seth looks at her worryingly; something in his face was screaming to Kendra that something was wrong.

“Sure.” He answers with a sense of fake bravado. Kendra ignores it for the moment, trying to remind herself to ask him about it when all this is over.

“Is there anything wrong with Emily?” she sees him twitching a bit at the mention of Emily’s name, but once again doesn’t mention it.

“Why should I know?” Seth looks down, looking through some of the papers in front of him trying to ignore Kendra’s eyes that surely were studying him.

“Because I know that you and Emily are together so I thought you would know.”

“I have no idea, Emily and I broke up weeks ago.” Somewhere deep down, she’s happy to hear that, but instead she doesn’t show it, “I had no idea.” She simply says. The building was always interested in the on again off again romance of the chief of staff and the press secretary, but Kendra always tried to stay away from that. It’s not that she wasn’t a gossipy person, because she sure was, but she just didn’t have the stomach for this particular story. 

“It’s fine it wasn’t working, and I could see it then,” he stops looking up smiling sadly,  “But I see it now.”

“Ok, I got to go, but if you wanna talk I’m good listener.” She tells him, his small smile just grows, finally reflecting truly in his eyes. It takes Kendra by surprise how different his face looks when he’s truly smiling.

“I might take you up on that offer.” He tells her, Kendra smiles and awkwardly starts walking to the door, why does she feel like she’s fifteen again?

She gets to the door and stops there for a moment, turning back Seth is still standing up looking at her walking out of the room, “Bye Seth.” She tells him smiling, she can see the soft blush in his neck and ears when he tells her, “Bye.”

* * *

 

Kendra walks to her office, she has a different spring in her feet, and a smile on her lips that became almost permanent. She barely has time to sit down when she notices the clock on her wall and realizes that she was late for the meeting with Aaron and Hannah. “Fuck!” she curses under her breath, hastily she gathers her things and walks downstairs to Aaron’s office. 

“Sorry was I late?” she asks seeing Hannah and Aaron already sitting there.

“No, Hannah just came too.” Aaron said smiling.

“Hey,” Kendra greets Hannah and sits down next to her, both of them facing Aaron.

“So what did you have to let us know?” Aaron asks Hannah, he looks tired, working nonstop with the DoD to make sure than none of the American fleet is in the way of the hurricane and make sure that the national guard is on call and ready to help in case of need.

“You know Damian escaped custody and while we haven’t found him yet, but when I went to his apartment, the one he used before, I found these.” She takes out of her folder some papers and leaves them on the desk, Kendra leans closer and studies the papers well, “He should not have had those, I don’t have those.”

“Those are the routes for the First Lady’s motorcade the night of the accident.” Kendra says, she recognizes the names of the streets, remembers counting them on the way back, Alex wasn’t in mood of talking much so it was an awkward ride after the first few minutes. “Who has access to those?” she asks Aaron, he looks pale leaning back on his chair.

“Very, very few people.” He answers, it scares her, the way he says it, Kendra realizes that she has to tell them about Alex and hers suspicions, no matter how farfetched they might have sounded earlier now she bets that Emily was one of those very, very few people.

“I have to tell you something.” She tells them, Hannah looks at her interested, she turns to her and asks her, “What?” almost too forcibly.

“I might be wrong but there’s someone” she tries, Kendra sees Aaron, his interest has spiked as well, leaning closer to both of them, his elbows on his desk, fidgeting with his index finger. “You suspect someone Kendra?” he asks.

“Emily’s been acting weird these days, the first lady noticed she was agitated and disappeared in the middle of the day, but I kept an eye on her as well. In the last couple days this happened all the time.” She looks at the other two people in the room, they both look as if she just gave them the missing link, but Kendra still feels uncomfortable about it, it’s not like she has seen it with her own eyes, other than today when Emily was missing, but her assistant was clear and so were all the other staff members she questioned. “I don’t want to blame her with no reason but still.”

“I’ll look into it.” Hannah tells her before she can even finish her thought.

“Hannah I know you are going to inform the president but could you please not tell him about Emily?” Aaron tells her, Hannah looks at him shocked, they had made a deal not to lie to the president ever again, especially since seeing what keeping him in the dark can cause with the Icarus investigation.

“Why?” She asks.

“Other than the fact that it’s just suspicions? Well he’s close to Emily, really close he considers her family, and the fact that I suspect the first lady talked to him about it and he didn’t do anything tells us a lot about how much he trusts her.” Aaron says, he turns to Kendra, “Did she?” he asks her.

Kendra bites her lip, Aaron was spot on about this, even if they do inform the president he wouldn’t believe it, he likes Emily and knows her longer than all of them he wouldn’t believe them over her, “She did. He ignored her.” she tells them.

“Exactly!” Hannah closes her eyes exhaling loudly, this was exactly what she was afraid, she was afraid that there would be a day where she would have to lie to the president again and she’s not sure she has many strikes left with him.

“I leave it out, I am going to warm him about a traitor in the white house though, I think those documents prove that we have a problem.” She tells them taking the documents from the office and putting them back into her folder, Kendra nods and sees Aaron nodding as well telling her, “Alright.”

* * *

 

Alex walks in her office to see her old friend waiting for her there, “Andrea! How nice to see you.” She says hugging her friend tightly.

“It’s nice to see you too, weren’t we supposed to see each other more now that you are in D.C.?” Andrea asks, her trademark smirk on her lips, Alex laughs and lowers her head, “We were, I’m sorry; you see how hectic it is.” She tells her showing the whole building behind her. Andrea nods and follows Alex to the couch on the other side of the room.

“I know, a category five hurricane right after a black out in D.C. and a dirty bomb going off, not to mention the secretary of state nearly being indicted. That puts a burden.”

“That’s true.” Alex reaches over for the coffee pot on the table in front of her, “How are you, I haven’t seen you since the dirty bomb went off.” She tells her, that night was such hectic, following an even more hectic day.

“I’m good, I actually started seeing someone since then.” Alex turns and looks at her friend, her eternally bachelor friend looked like a schoolgirl in love.

“Really?” she asks giving Andrea a mug of coffee.

“Yeah.” Alex looks at her over the rim of her mug, “Do I know him?” she asks.

Andrea smiles, “Well kinda.” Alex nods knowingly letting her mug on the table. “But you’re not going to tell me.” She says, she knows Andrea long enough and well enough to know that these are the things her friend keeps close to her chest.

“Well, not yet.”  She says, Alex smiles but doesn’t say anything else, she was happy for her friend, for all her success and smarts, Andrea was never particularly lucky in that aspect.

“What’s with this smile?” Andrea asks her.

“Nothing, I just have to say that in all the years I’ve known you, and it’s been many, I never saw that look on your face before.” Alex points out; Andrea is slightly puzzled, “What look?” She asks.

“It’s the look of a woman in love.”

* * *

 

Tom was in a hurry; looking at the clock he was already late to the dinner with Ellenor and Christopher. He hears a knock on the door and curses under his breath before calling on the person to come in he sees Hannah walking in, she looked tired, it shocked Tom that it was her that late at night. She was tired, he knew that with John’s injury at the bomb explosion she was really tired. He is still impressed that John survived the bomb with such minor injuries and is able to be back to work so soon. “Hannah, is it urgent? Alex and I have dinner with Ellenor and her husband.” He asks her still gathering his papers from the desk and looking for his jacket which he threw somewhere during the day.

“I will be brief then sir. As you know Damian Rennet has escaped, but I went to his apartment and went though his things and I found some documents that shouldn’t be in his possession, because I don’t have them in my possession.” Tom freezes, his battered briefcase falls from his hand on the floor with a loud thud.

“What documents?” he asks Hannah, she takes out a folder and places the documents inside on his desk. Tom puts on his glasses and walks closer.

“He had the routes for the first lady’s motorcade,” she tells him, Tom turns and looks at her, she can see the panic in his eyes. So far they all believed that the accident was just that, “On Christmas night.” He takes out his glasses, running a hand over his face, “He had the routes? How?” he asks.

“I think there is a traitor in the white house, someone high enough to know the routes of the secret service.” Hannah says, Tom feels like throwing up, he thought this was over when Jay Whitaker was arrested almost a year ago but now he finds himself facing the same nightmare again. It feels as if this presidency is just like Groundhog Day over and over again.

“You sure?” he asks her after gathering his thoughts.

“Yes sir,”

“Alright, what you want me to do?” he doesn’t want to face this reality not again, but he knows he has to, if someone high up in his circle was leaking to Damian about his and his family’s ware bouts he had to take action.

“I want you to be very careful sir, you and Mrs. Kirkman can trust no one but me Aaron and Kendra, they are the only ones I’ve cleared.” Hannah tells him, she can see him having trouble believing what’s happening, and she doesn’t really blame him, this isn’t a little thing, they had promised that this was over when they arrested Whitaker.

“Kendra doesn’t have access to them.” He tells her, Hannah, stops herself from responding, it wasn’t that he wasn’t right, but she knew that if she eliminated all those without actual access in those papers, her suspect would become clear and she was terrified that he would reject the entire severity of the situation if that happened.

“Well. Just be careful sir.” She tells him, noticing his face she feels guilty she causes all these emotions to him.

“Thank you Hannah.” He says faking a smile, she knows a dismiss when she sees one so she gathers her things and leaves the room, offering a simple, “Good night sir,” at the door.

* * *

 

Tom walks to the residence, he knows Alex will be waiting for him, looking at his watch he’s almost half an hour late but he couldn’t stop thinking about what Hannah told him. the doors to the elevator open and he comes face to face with Alex’s worried face, “Tom!|”| she tells him, hugging him she tells him in his ear “I was about to come down and find you.” She pulls back; Tom tries to put a smile on his face, trying to mask from her everything running through his mind. He doesn’t consider how good Alex has become in reading him though.

“Ellenor and her husband are waiting.” She tells him, Alex tries to coax him into telling her why he was so late.

“Sorry, I just… I had a briefing I forgot about.” He tells her smiling, the smile tight, fake, forced. She knows those, they become such a normal thing in their day to day lives these days “Is it something bad?” she asks him, she knows she’s getting lose to the issue.

“No, nothing to worry about yet.” He tells her, taking her hand and walking to their bedroom where he could change out of these clothes into something more comfortable. He knew this dinner with Ellenor and Christopher never have the normal duration of a dinner; he was thankful that Alex had liked not only Christopher but Ellenor as much as he liked them.

“But it is something to worry about correct?” she asks him, stopping at her tracks and pulling him back a bit.

“Yeah, but not now. Let’s have dinner.” He tells her smiling, Alex nods lets go of his hand letting him go to the bedroom before turning and walking to the dining room muttering under her breath “Ok.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading please let me know what you think.  
> Till next time, Bye!


	5. Doubts

Tom spent the whole night awake, he couldn’t really sleep, no matter how hard he had tried time and time again. Hannah’s words of a traitor in the white house rang in his ears loudly. So loudly that he couldn’t ignore them for a moment. And then there was Alex’s suspicions, he tried ignoring them at first, dismissing them as just nerves on Emily’s behalf but right now he can’t stop thinking that they could be connected.

But then again he knew Emily, he knew her for years, could she really be so cold and lie to him to his face? Try and kill Alex? She knows how much Alex means to him, she’s not just his wife or the mother of his children, she’s his best friend, his anchor. She knew all these, how could she still do this to him?

Looking to his right, Alex was still sleeping, she looked so beautiful with the soft first light of the day on her face. The thought that he could have lost her forever sends a chill down his spine. He tries to shake that thought from his head and walks to the bathroom to get ready, today was going to be just as exhausting as yesterday was.

* * *

 

Alex was studying Tom for a few minutes, he had asked her to join him for lunch today but he stayed silent most of the time just playing with his food.

“Tom what’s going on?” she asks him taking his hand in hers. Tom lets the fork down and takes a deep breath, “Few days ago, you came to me with some suspicions about Emily’s behavior.” He says, Alex looks at him, she was wondering if this could be what she thinks it is, could he actually be thinking of what she had told him?“Yeah,” she says.

“Well last night Hannah came and briefed me,” she nods, he had told her about the briefing when he came upstairs, almost half an hour late. “We have a traitor in the white house.” He says, his voice low, looking around as if someone is watching him, “Someone high up either in the National Security Council, or secret service or,”

“Emily.” Alex says cutting him off, Tom nods, “Yeah.” he says. “What made you suspicious of Emily in the first place?” he asks her, Alex isn’t sure what else to tell him, she had told him everything a couple days ago after all.

“I told you, she wasn’t acting right, something is wrong, I don’t know what is going on.”

* * *

 

Hannah looks at the phone records Chuck got for her, she could clear most people in the president’s circle, but a few still remained. Mike Ritter and Emily Rhodes would be the ones that would cost him the most.

She leaves Mike’s phone records down, there’s not that much in them after all, just his normal daily calls to his parents and two delivery shops close to his place, one pizza and one Chinese. Looking through Emily’s phone records though there was something that caught her attention, one phone number kept appearing starting December 25th. It puzzles her, this number appears at all times of the day and night. Running it through the system she doesn’t get anything back, meaning that it’s a burner phone which frustrates her even more.

“Fuck!” she curses, her voice echoing around the walls.

* * *

 

Tom comes back to the residence around midnight, both Leo and Penny have long been asleep. Walking in the bedroom he sees Alex sitting on the bed, her laptop on her lap. She smiles when she sees him coming inside the room, “How was your day?” she asks him, closing the laptop and leaving it on the bedside table.

“Good.” Tom chuckles, “Terrible” he tells her sitting down on the bed taking off his shoes and throwing the jacket on the couch across. He turns around facing her and leans towards her on his elbows. “I can’t keep up like that for long Alex, I can’t run the country looking over my shoulder, I tried this and I failed”

“Has Hannah cleared anyone?” She asks him.

“Only Kendra and Aaron.”

“That’s not enough.”

“Well Seth and Lyor, but mostly because they don’t have the clearance to get those documents.” He tells her closing his eyes for a moment.

“How about Mike?” she asks him, “You suspect Mike?”

“No, no,” he stops, he can’t suspect Mike, the thought alone was killing him. “I don’t know Alex, I can’t imagine Mike being involved but,” he stops himself feeling sick that he even thought about it.

“You can’t be sure.” Alex says, she can see the despair in Tom’s eyes, he hates having to work like that, it’s not in his nature to be trusting and this situation is draining him.

“No and I hate this.” She crawls forward sitting next to him, she wraps her arm around his shoulder and he leans his head on her shoulder.

“I know you do.”

* * *

 

Damian picks up the phone; his partner was calling him again.

“Is Wells on my trail?” the voice on the other side tells him.

“I can’t tell for sure, she’s tight lipped about everything.” He says, he has bugged all her phones and her apartment but Hannah Wells is careful, she doesn’t say anything loud enough for him to pick up. “Can’t you find out about it?” he asks.

“No! They shut me out!” Damian winches, that was some loud scream that came from the other side.

“Relax, I have an idea!”


	6. In the dark of the night

They only had two days before the hurricane would hit land and everything around them was frantic, even staffers that normally wouldn’t have anything to do with it like Kendra and Aaron were on their toes, trying to help in the organizing of the shelters and the supplies needed.

Tom leaves the office earlier today going upstairs to help Alex with the packing, they were scheduled to leave tonight and Alex was adamant that she wasn’t going to pack on her own for all four of them.

Penny walks inside again, carrying this time her new dress Andrea got for her for her birthday last week.

“No Penny you don’t need your good dress, please.” Alex tells her, Tom can see her frustration in her face, this was the tenth time Penny brought her one of her good dressed to pack.

“But mommy!” their daughter tried to complain.

“Penny!”

“Penny listen to your mom, we’re not moving to Camp David forever, we’ll be back in a few days, just get a couple of warm clothes and your hiking boots.” Tom tells her, to both their surprise Penny just murmurs, “Ok.” Defeated before walking back to her room.

“I said the exact same things time and time again.” Alex says still shocked. “How come she listened to you and not me?” she asks him, her arms on her waist. Tom smiles and leans forward kissing her lips. “She likes me better.” He says and walks back to the closet to get some more clothes.

“You should pack some warm clothes.” She tells him when she sees what he carries in his hands.

“What?” Tom asks confused.

“Pack warm clothes Tom, you don’t need three suits, we’ll be in Camp David.” She tells him, Tom looks down at his suitcase seeing that he had indeed already packed three suits carrying another three in his hands.

“You’re right.” He tells her walking back to the closet to hang the clothes again. He walks outside picking up the other two suits when there’s a knock on the door.

“Sir?”Aaron sneaks his head through the door.

“I’ll pack for you, go.” Alex tells Tom who lets the clothes back in the suitcase and follows Aaron outside.

“Aaron what is it?” Tom asks him, Aaron gives him a small smile before telling him, “We managed to clear agent Ritter and the agents in your and the first family’s detail.”

“Thank God!” Tom breaths in relief, he smiles widely back at Aaron and shakes his hand, “Thank you so much Aaron.” He tells him and turns around to go back into the bedroom.

Alex hears the door opening and turns around, Tom is smiling widely walking towards her, “What?” she asks him leaving a sweater back on the bed.

“Mike is cleared; well your and my details are cleared.” He tells her, Alex signs in relief, it’s a whole new ballgame to have to be suspicious of the people meant to protect you, she knows for sure she owes them a huge apology when all this is over.

“Oh finally.”  She says.

“Yeah.”  Tom walks closer noticing that his suitcase was filled, “You packed already?” he asks her in surprise.

“Tom you packed condoms and a bowtie.”  She tells him a smirk on her face as she shows him the package of condoms and the bowtie she had left on the bed.

“I shouldn’t be allowed to pack on my own” Tom says hanging his head down, he hates packing but he wanted to help Alex and not let her do everything on her own. Apparently he was so terrible that maybe he should.

“You shouldn’t.” she tells him. she turns around and starts folding some of her clothes on the bed putting them carefully in her suitcase when she feels Tom hugging her from behind, his head on her shoulder “Sorry.” He tells her.

She laughs and turns to face him, “Go to the office, I’ll finish packing.”

* * *

 

Tom walks to his office, Mike is following him closely behind, they both enter his private office in the west wing, with Mike ready to walk outside when Tom stops him, “Mike! I need to talk to you.”

“Of course sir.” He says with a tight smile, he looked tired too, apparently preparing for the hurricane, having to evacuate the entire first family wasn’t as easy as he made it look sometimes.

“I want my staff, Ellenor’s staff and family, as well as Trey, Andrea and Eva to come with us in Camp David.” He tells Mike, Tom almost expects Mike to start yelling at him every day he just keeps adding people to the list he wants to evacuate with him.

“It’s gonna be a bit cramped, but if you want sir we can make it happen.” Tom smiles, “Thank you Mike, its ok we’ll be fine, even if we are a bit cramped.” He says, “How about your family?” Tom asks, Mike chuckles, of course he was going to ask that.

“My parents are for California sir.”  He answers Tom smiles and nods, “Thank you Mike.”

“No problem sir.”

* * *

 

Ellenor is waiting for him in the oval, she’s a little earlier than their meeting was supposed to start but Tom doesn’t mind. “Mr. President” she greets him shaking his hand, “Ellenor, thank you for coming” the two of them sit down next to each other.

“Thank you for including me, my family, and my staff especially in this.” Ellenor says, Tom smiles and shakes his head, “Ellenor you don’t have to thank me for that, has your staff started leaving yet?” She smiles and nods, “Yes sir, the last are leaving tonight with me and my family on marine two.”

“Good, Alex the kids and I are leaving tonight as well.” He tells her.

“We’ll be leaving in an hour, so I guess I’ll meet you there sir.” She tells him standing up and shaking his hand.

“Of course Ellenor,” Tom tells her, “Have a good flight.”

“You too sir.”

* * *

 

Hannah is waiting for Emily to leave the office, she knows that she will e evacuating sometime tonight or tomorrow but she wants to follow her back to her apartment,  maybe nothing will come of it but she just couldn’t let it go. Not when there was a true possibility that she might be meeting with Damian. She’s almost sure that Emily was the traitor, with Mike finally cleared but she can’t go to the president with just a maybe, she needs something more concrete.

Emily walks out of the building about an hour later; she looks worried, looking over her shoulder as she walks to her car, not noticing Hannah hiding in her car.

Hannah lets her drive a few miles ahead, she had Chuck tap her into Emily’s GPS so she didn’t have to follow her too closely and make her suspicious. She parks her car across from the apartment building; the light on Emily’s apartment on the fifth floor is on. There’s absolute silence around her, not a lot cars moving up or down the road.

Still she feels as if someone is watching her so she tries to keep her eyes as open as she can, looking around every so often. She doesn’t see the man dressed in all black approaching. When she did realize he was there it was too late, he had already broken the window on her car and stabbed a needle on her neck.

* * *

 

Tom looks at his office one last time, he and Alex were set to leave in about an hour for Camp David, the hurricane is set to make landfall some time the day after tomorrow, with the possibility of even hitting tomorrow at night, and the secret service was itching to get them to leave the place. Tom doesn’t blame them really, he knows he had been a pain all week.

John walks in the office not really knocking slightly tripping over his own two feet. Tom is shocked to see him so soon on his feet again, it seems like it’s yesterday that he was released from the hospital after spending a month in ICU for radiation poisoning.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Tom asks him.

“Sir I know you are getting ready to evacuate but we have a problem.” Tom takes a good look at him, he knows that look on his face, he had seen it only once before.

“What is it?” he asks him, even though he can suspect who is involved.

“It’s Hannah sir, we’ve lost contact with her” he stops leaning on the back of the couch on his left slightly unsteady on his feet. “It’s been nearly a day.”

“What?” he walks closer to the other man, his hand grips his arm trying to steady him on his feet. “And Damian is still on the loose isn’t he?”

“Yes sir.”

“John, get your family and drive to Camp David, I want you to have your agents looking for Hannah, I’m afraid I can give you a day, maybe a day and a half, I don’t want you to risk more agents’ lives.” John looks at Tom, his face broken, but Tom can still see the burns on his forehead and cheeks, he knows that they are there because of his incompetence and can’t look away.

“But sir.” John tries, Tom leans forward he uses his other hand to grip both his arms now, “Listen to me, whoever has her will probably wants information from her they are not going to kill her, find her before the hurricane strikes.” He tells him, he still sees John feeling conflicted about it, Hannah is his closest friend, even after everything that happened with the Icarus investigation he still considers him his best friend and he hopes she does too. He can’t leave her at the mercy of whoever’s holding her while he was safely hidden away in Camp David.

“Yes sir.”

* * *

 

Alex sees Tom looking out of the helicopter’s window, “Tom you seem distracted.” She tells him whispering, she doesn’t want the kids to hear her.

“Hannah is missing.” He whispers back.

“What?”

“Forstell just informed me.”

“Oh my God!” he sees her, her eyes betraying all the terror her face is concealing too well.

“We’ll talk about it when we land alright.” He tells her running his hand up and down her arm.

“Yeah,” she grips his hand tightly in hers, “yeah.” She repeats to no one but herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading guys!!!


	7. Torture

Hannah opens her eyes and looks around, everything around her is dark, she tries to move her hands but can’t “Fuck” she curses under her breath. She tries to get her surroundings but can see very little. It seems to be an old building, she can hear the sound of water nearby and as her eyes adjust to the darkness she can see some of the cracks between the wood on the walls. “Well well, look who woke up.” Hannah turns her head towards the sound of the voice, she knows it, but doesn’t want to believe it. Her worse fear though materializes as Damian’s face starts coming out of the shadows.

“What the hell you want from me?” she asks him, he smiles, it makes her wonder did his smile always looked so dangerous? “What else? Information.” Hannah chuckles “Well you’re out of luck.”

“We’ll see.”

* * *

 

Damian takes the towel from her face and she’s finally able to breathe, “Will you tell me what I want to know?” he asks, his voice sweet almost sickening.

“Go to hell.” Hannah tells him, she can see a blade shinning when the light peeking through the cracks hit it and knows she’ll pay this defiance.

“I will,” he walks closer and uses the knife to cut the buttons from her shirt before starting slowly cutting thin shallow lines on her skin. “But I’ll take you with me darling.”

* * *

 

Tom tried sleeping but he couldn’t, realizing it was a lost cause he gets up from the bed and walks to the small mini bar at the edge of the room, he realized just now how much of an alcohol abuse problem previous president must have had. Richmond had a mini bar on every single room. Right about now though he can’t really blame him, he pours himself and glass and walks to the armchair by the window, the rain had already started, and the occasional lightning bolt breaks the darkness of the night.

“Tom?” her voice startles him, he  turns and sees her sitting up on the bed, she looks to him just like when they first met, way back before the presidency and the conspiracies, the assassinations and the car accident that nearly cost her her life.

“Alex, go back to sleep.” He tells her with a small forced smile.

“No, I can’t sleep.”  She tells him shrugging her shoulders; he sees her getting more comfortable on the bed, pulling her knees to her chest, her hands clutching the thin blanket tightly.

“Thunders?” he asks.

“You know they bother me.” She tells him, Tom chuckles, “Yeah, I know.” He says taking another sip from his glass.

“Come to bed.” She tells him, Tom want to but he feels like his feet are too heavy, “Tom, come.” He smiles, letting the glass on the small coffee table next to him and forces his feet to move. She pulls the blanket and he settles down on the bed next to her. Alex leans closer on him; he wraps his arm around her shoulders as she lays her head on his shoulder.

“I always liked the rain, as a little kid I would walk out and just sit there, my mother was screaming, I would get Trey with me and we would just run in the rain.” He hears her chuckle, “Your mother was a saint.” She comments, her voice muffled by the fabric of his shirt as she tries to bury her face on his neck, trying to shut off the ever more frequent thunders.

“She was sure patient.” He says. Another thunder almost makes the windows shake, he feels her clutching his shirt tightly, he always wondered when this hatred for thunders started.

“I love rain when it’s calm, I hate thunderstorms.” She says.

* * *

 

Lyor is getting ready to leave when he sees the light to Emily’s office still being on, it made him curious looking at his watch it was well past eleven and he thought he was alone in the building. He walks in the office; Emily is sitting on her chair, her hands covering her face as she leans on her elbows on her desk.

“Emily you’re still here?” he asks.

“Well so are you.” She tells him, a smile on her face sends chills down his spine, it’s so different that the one he’s used to, this one feels cold and just different all around.

“Yeah I just picked some last things, want a ride to Camp David? I’ll be leaving tonight, I can pick you up.” He offers, they sure had their fights during the time they were preparing for the hurricane but Emily still remained one of his oldest friends, if he could call what they had friendship. She sure fought for him when no one would hire him.

“Thanks Lyor but,” he notices her biting her lip, the smile on her face making him more uncomfortable by each passing minute. “I have to settle some things, tie up some lose ends before I go.”

“Emily the hurricane will make landfall earlier than expected sometime tomorrow, you should hurry.” He tells her, she walks to him placing a hand on his shoulder as she walks out, “Yeah I will, don’t worry about me Lyor I’ll meet you in Camp David when I’m done.” She tells him before leaving the office letting him stand in the middle of the room.

* * *

 

“Since when?” Tom asks her, Alex looks up puzzled, “Huh?”

“I don’t remember you hating them when we were first dating, so I wonder.” He sees Alex biting her lip as she looks away from him, it makes him even more worried, this isn’t her reaction about anything, at least not with him, he wonders what could the story be?

She takes a deep breath and pulls herself away from him, sitting across from him, facing him, “I was dating Jeffrey, we were supposed to go out on dinner, and he was living in this, really sketchy area. I went over to his place, so he could drive us to the restaurant, I rang and rang, and he wouldn’t answer. So I used my key and went up, and I found him screwing another woman on the couch. I threw the keys and just ran away. I never told you but,” she stops taking a deep breath, he can almost see some tears in her eyes forming, “I saw you that night, you were with a date, you passed right by me and you didn’t even notice I was standing there.” Tom reaches forward and takes her hand in his pulling her softly back by his side,

“Third bench on the left, you were wearing a black dress, you had your hair in high bun, and you had the earrings your mother gave you for your 18th birthday on. Strappy heels, one heel broken.” He tucks a stray strand behind her ear, “Mascara running down your face.” He stops staring at her, the shock in her eyes, she honestly thought that he was able to just walk by her and not notice her sitting there, crying while clutching a necklace in her hands. “I saw you; I just didn’t think you saw me.”

“I guess we both had secrets about that night.” She chuckles, a few tears escaping her eyes and settles back under his arm, “Yeah.” Tom whispers in her hair, “He’s an idiot. Just a complete idiot.” He hears her laugh, he looks down and sees her looking back at him,

“I think we’ve established that.”

Looking into her eyes he wonders how the hell did he lived without her, it’s been so long anyway that he forgot how to be alone. “Why did I ever let you go?” he asks.

Alex sits up, ”It wasn’t you,” she tells him, Tom looks away for a moment, she puts a hand on his chest, “I was scared Tom, I was just 19 years old and you bought me a ring. You had just graduated a year ago I freaked out.” She tells him smiling,

“And you didn’t even know it cost me a month’s paycheck huh?” he tells her chuckling, right now her reaction to knowing the actual price of the ring makes so much more sense to him, so many things make so much more sense.

“I wouldn’t have taken it.” She tells him, “Really?” he asks.

“I freaked out thinking it was a cheap ring can you imagine?” Tom chuckles, she did have a point after all but he knows her well enough to know that she’s avoiding the real issue.

“You never told me why.” He asks her,

“Why I freaked?”

“Yeah.” He tries not to seem so insecure, but he can’t stop himself from just gripping her waist tightly. “I never asked of you anything more than you could give so why?”

“Come on Tom you knew my reputation I never had a nice, normal relationship, and what we had was… well barely that.” He chuckles and lowers his head, “Yeah, we were both really fucked up weren’t we?” he tells her, truth be told the first time they were together they could barely take care of themselves, maybe it was worth it, the break up, the heart breaks, the time apart, it all was worth it so they could make it work the second time around.

“Yeah, we were.”

“I’m just glad I saw you that night.” He tells her, there’s a smirk on her lips when she asks him, “Why?”

“I broke up with Gina that night, the girl you saw me with. And, um,” he stops biting his lip, Alex notices that his ears start turning red and gets intrigued. “I got Trey to find you.” She smiles she never knew that, Trey, for all the other things he told her about Tom never told her that. “He failed but for my good luck, we happened to bump into each other two days later.”

“Gina?” she mutters, “Please tell me you weren’t dating Gina Rogers.”

“Yeah, was a bad time for both of us I guess.” To say he was surprised that this was what she wanted to know more about would be an understatement.

“Did you knew she was the one who was spreading the rumors that I was cheating on you right?”  

“Really?”

“Yeah! How could you not know this?”

“Well that was going on in campus and apart from picking you up I had nothing to do with it.”Tom tells her, Alex chuckles and settles back into his arms.

“I never said she was smart!” the two of them started laughing, Tom looks at the woman next to him, it still amazed him how she knew exactly what to say to make him forget his troubles.

“Thank you” he whispers to her, she looks up, there’s a knowing smile on her face as she asks him, “For what?”

“Being you.”


	8. Escape

Emily drives to the apartment she knows he’s in, he’s been trying for a day to get Hannah to talk but he didn’t have the results she needed, now it was her turn to try and she wasn’t going to fail.

“You.” He says when he opens the door and sees her standing there.

“Yes me, take me to Hannah, let’s see if I can get the truth out of her.” she says smirking, he takes the car keys from the dining table few steps behind him, “As you wish.” He tells her.

* * *

 

The next time Hannah opens her eyes she feels drowsy, she knows all the shallow wounds on her upper torso won’t kill her but she is still losing blood by the minute, especially by the one on her abdomen, it seemed as if Damian’s hand slipped and his meticulous cutting went a bit too deep. She tried moving her hands, trying to release herself from the chair Damian has her tied but couldn’t. The rope started burning her wrists “Come on,” she yells in frustration.

She finally manages to loosen the ropes a bit and tries to wiggle her hands out, a cry of pain left her lips when the worn rope touched her right wrist, she could feel blood on her skin, apparently she had done more damage trying to get free than she thought, “Come on dammit.”

It doesn’t take her long after that to finally pull her left hand free and then her right, “Yes!” she yells as she uses her hands to cover her face for the first time in a day.

She quickly unties her feet and torso and stands up, her steps are a bit clumsy, the blood loss and the tight robe around her limps had made her wobbly on her feet.

Hannah tries to open the door but can’t, no matter how hard she pulls or pushes, she suspects that Damian has added some other lock as well. She looks around the room, she knows he will come back and when he does she wants to be ready for him. Hannah finds an old rusted iron pole thrown in the corner and picks it up, it’s a bit too heavy but she will manage and hides next to the door.

It doesn’t take long for a car to park outside, the grip on the metal becomes tighter and she prepares for the door to open.

She’s shocked when she sees Emily Rhodes there as well, “How?” she asks before Hannah just swings the pole at her head and knocks her unconscious, Damian lunges at her trying to get the metal of her hands, he grips the other side tightly and tries to pull it away from Hannah. She pushes forward the metal hits him on the abdomen and for a moment he seems to have lost his breath, she pulls back and manages to free the other end. Without hesitation she swings the pole at his head knocking him unconscious as well, he falls next to Emily and she leans down taking the car keys from his hands.

Walking outside the ocean air and water splashes her in the face, she locks the warehouse behind her knowing full well that she’s condemning them both to death but she knows she can’t take them in her condition. She walks a bit to the left, the warehouse was overlooking a cliff, she knew it was straight on the path of the hurricane and smiled, she was the last person those two would ever hurt again.

* * *

 

Hannah was driving to Camp David, she knew that the city was empty and from the GPS she was closer to Maryland than she was to the closest FBI base. She knew that the president would be evacuated there, Mike was kind to inform her of the evacuation plan when she asked him before following Emily. She wonders where John might be, her fingers are shaking as she dials his number on the phone Damian had left in the car.

“John, when you get this, it’s Hannah I’m going to Camp David, I need to inform the president.” She tells him and hangs up there are so many things that she wanted to tell him, but she can’t her strength  is leaving her mile by mile and she couldn’t afford to spend any more trying to explain to him.

She gets to Camp David about an hour later, one of the guards in the entrance stops her, “Ma’am I need some id.” He tells her, she looks around but her FBI ID is gone, of course Damian wasn’t going to let her keep that, “I’m agent Wells, call Agent Ritter, he’ll confirm it.” She says, the soldier walks back, “Get out of the car and wait here.” He orders her, she does so and tries to lean against the car.

“Hannah!” she looks to her left where the voice is coming and sees John clumsily running to her, he’s limping, his cane slowing him down, it must have been one of the bad days, “Hannah!” he yells her name again, the soldier that was holding him back lets go of fear that the man was going to swing his cane at him if he didn’t. 

He stands next to her, his cane falls with a soft thud on the ground as he wraps his arms around her, “John, I need to talk to the president.” She tells him, his hand brushes against her wound on her stomach, “Hannah you’re bleeding,” he barely manages to finish his words when his knee buckles under Hannah’s weight, she couldn’t keep herself up anymore so they both fell to the cold wet muddy ground, “stay with me, stay with me!” he tells her, one arm around her shoulders the other brushing her hair off her face.

“I need,” she closes her eyes, but tries to finish her sentence, “I need…” her hand falls limp on her side, John shakes her as hard as he can but she doesn’t wake up, he repeats her name a couple times, the tears burning his face,

“No, NO! Hannah!”


	9. Death and Rebirth

It was a week after the hurricane had hit, Tom was itching to get back to the white house, he was flying to D.C. daily any way with Alex to help and volunteer on shelters, he wouldn’t admit it to anyone but he was secretly looking for Emily as well. He knew he got a voicemail from her telling him that her mom was ill and that she was going to stay with her and he respected that, he really did, but it all seemed too weird to him, “Mike it’s been a week since the hurricane, most of D.C. is cleared out and the white house wasn’t damaged during the hurricane, it’s costly for me to stay here when daily I fly back to D.C.” he tries again to reason with Mike, his friend was willing to be accommodating in a lot of things but this wasn’t one of them.

“I understand that sir, but the white house, although structurally safe has other problems, cleaning crews are still cleaning the place up, not to mention that with electricity and clean water are still not restored I don’t want you to come face to face with an unruly mob!” he repeats again, he turns to Alex, his eyes begging her to try and reason with Tom, she smiles and stands up, letting her book on the coffee table,

“Tom Mike’s right. I went to the white house today, while you were at the command center with Ellenor, we can’t move back yet. Most of the basements and the ground floors have actually flooded, there’s debris on the premises and the fence is broken in many places we might have to stay here for a couple weeks till that’s all repaired.” She tells him, he turns and looks at her nodding, reaches over and gives her hand on his shoulder a squeeze.

“I have to go take a few things then.” He tells Mike who smiles widely and nods, “We can go tomorrow sir.”

“Ok.”

* * *

 

The young officer flicks his light against the rocks, something shinny catches his attention, he flicks his light there again and notices the body that’s smashed there, it belongs to a woman, her brown hair cover her face, he walks carefully down the path they cleared earlier and reaches closer, he tries to find a pulse, not that he needed to but it was procedure, he calls the paramedics over and they remove her from the rocks, her body seems to be broken, her face badly bruised and cut from the collision with the rocks. He searches her pockets and finds her id looking at the name he can’t help the curse that leaves his lips.

“Chief we found another one!” he calls his boss when he’s close enough, the older office turns, “Where?” he asks.

“She was smashed against the rocks, we found this id on her.” he gives him the id he found on the woman, his boss runs a hand over his mouth.

“Oh crap!”

* * *

 

Mike barges in the office, Tom looks up startled, “Sir, I have some terrible news.” He says, Tom stands up and walks to Mike, putting a steadying hand on his arm, “What?”

“It’s about Emily sir, she’s been found dead.” Tom feels the whole word spinning around him, “What?” he asks, he can’t breathe, he tries hard to get some air in but it feels like his lungs are closing. “Oh no!”

* * *

 

Mike helped him back to the bedroom, holding his arm, trying to help him walk the steps between the office and the bedroom. Alex was waiting there; she almost throws the papers from her lap and walks to them when she sees them entering the room. One look is enough of thank you for Mike who lets her take over and closes the door behind him. She helps him to the couch and sits down next to him “Tom, what happened?” she asks him.

“Emily’s dead.” She is shocked, it’s almost too much to comprehend, but Tom has tears in his eyes so it must be true.

“I need to go, I have to find her mother and let her know.” He says standing up, he walks to the closet taking his backpack and starts throwing clothes in mindlessly.

“I get it.” She places a hand on his arm, he stops staring down at one of the shirts in his hands.

“I can’t believe it, Emily was the first person in D.C. that believed in me and now she’s,” he lets the shirt fall from his hands back on the bed and turns to Alex, “She’s gone.”

“It’s horrible,” Alex leans forward and wraps her arms around Tom, she wonders why can’t she cry, Emily was at one point her friend as well, so why can’t she shed a tear, she thinks what her reaction would be if it was Andrea or Kimble or Kendra or Ellenor the one in the morgue and she can’t help but feel the tears filling her eyes, it’s weird, one of their closest confidants was actually dead and her brain couldn’t produce a single tear, the thought of losing some of the newer people in their lives (apart from Andrea) and she’s ready to sob like a child. “Tom if you’re not feeling well maybe you should let someone else do it.” She suggests pulling back.

“No, it’s the least I can do Alex.” He tells her, he takes the bag  looking in it he sees there’s not much needed he actually packed, Alex takes it from his hand “You have what you need at home.” She tells him, Tom nods and leans forward placing a kiss on her lips, they both can taste the salty tears, so different the reasons they are there.

“Ok, remember I love you.” She tells him when she pulls back, Tom smiles, a sad smile that barely reflects to his eyes and tells her, “I love you too.”

* * *

 

Hannah opens her eyes, there’s a weight on both her hands, at first she’s frightened that she’s still tied to that god forsaken chair but soon John’s aftershave and Chuck’s shampoo fills her nostrils. She looks down the two longest friends in her life are sleeping each holding on of her hands under their cheeks.

“Chuck? John.” she tries moving her hand to wake them up, John jumps up first, “Hannah!” he calls her name, his voice betraying the relief he feels, his face still burned from the explosion lights up when he sees her smiling back

“Oh finally.” Chuck says smiling, he grips her hand tightly.

“Where’s the president?” she asks, she tries to sit up but Chuck is faster and gently pushes her back on the bed. “I need to talk to him immediately.”

* * *

 

“Sir!” John sees the president walking to marine one and tries calling him louder this time “Sir!” the president turns around he stops and walks closer to the limping man.

“Director, what is going on?” he asks.

“Sir, Hannah woke up, she needs to talk to you right away.” He looks at the man shocked, turning to Mike he whispers, “Mike tell the pilot to wait, we’ll be a bit late.”

“Yes sir.” He turns back to John, “Alright John let’s go.” He tells him walking with the other man to the medical ward


	10. Betrayal Revealed

Tom walks in Hannah’s room, the woman is sitting up leaning against many pillows. “Hannah how nice to see you awake again.” He tells her shaking her hand.

“Thank you sir,” she smiles, Tom can’t help but notice the bruises on her face.

“John told me you have to tell me something, what is it?” he asks her when the silence between them became unbearable.

“When Damian kidnapped me, he didn’t do it for himself, he did it so he could figure out if I knew who his coconspirator in the white house was.” She stops to take a breath, she sees him sitting across from her following her every word. “It was Emily Rhodes sir.” Something inside him fights her words she can see it, she knows he is, “She was the one who pushed for you to be the designated survivor, she was the one incriminating Aaron Shore, she was the one to threaten Langton, she was the puppeteer.”

“What about Whitaker? Wasn’t he involved?” he asks as soon as he gathers his wits.

“He was, she, at the time she didn’t have the authority to call the designated survivor, but she suggested to Pax Americana that it should be you because,” she stops herself, this was going to be something that was going to hurt him like nothing else, she knew that, everyone knew how much Emily meant to him, how much her advice was crucial to his decision making process.

“Because?” he asks, she sees something in his eyes changing, the devastated look slowly darkening, something that she wasn’t sure he had in him starts boiling under the surface.

“Because you would be an easy target sir.”

“Oh my god!” he gasps, his hand flies to his mouth as he stands up and walks away from Hannah’s bed. “How, how could I not see this?” he murmurs to himself. “How could she do this? She knew me for years, she knew Alex and Penny and Leo, how could she do this? Try and kill me, kill Alex?” his rage explodes without a warning, but it’s gone as soon as it appears, he turns back to Hannah, she sees his eyes start filling with fresh tears.

“Don’t over think it sir, she was just psychopath, these individuals can’t feel anything.” She tells him. he bites his lip, closing his eyes as he takes a few deep breaths, he walks close to Hannah and takes one of her hands in his, “Hannah I want you to take some time off to recover, if you excuse me I need some time.” He gives her a light squeeze and leaves the room. Chuck enters right after closing the door behind him, “He looked devastated.” He points out.

“Who wouldn’t be Chuck, who wouldn’t be?”

* * *

 

“Tom! Oh my god you look terrible!” Alex jumps from her seat on the kitchen island when she sees Tom entering through the back door, he looked worn down, his eyes bloodshot, his face red from the quite chilly night air.

“Alex,” he wraps his arms around her when she’s close enough, “I can’t, I can’t stay here, will you come with me for a walk.” He whispers to her neck as he tries to bury his face there.

“Tom you look like you’re about to collapse.” She tells him pulling back her hands still clutching his arms tightly.

“I just need fresh air.”

“Wait I’ll go get my coat.” She tells him letting go of his arms. She’s not late for long barely ten minutes when she comes back, her coat and a scarf on. “I’m ready.”She takes his extended hand and they walk out of the cabin, for May it’s still too cold outside, especially at night, she uses her free hand to clutch the coat closed around her neck, they start taking the path towards the small forest where they usually go hiking and she looks back to see Mike following them at a long distance.

They were walking in silence for about an hour when she grips Tom’s hand stopping him at his tracks. “What’s wrong Tom? We’ve been walking for an hour.” She asks him, he leads her to one of the wooden benches at the edge of the path and sits down, “It was Emily all along.” He tells her, his voice barely above a whisper and yet it echoes around the silent forest around them.

“I’m sorry?” she asks, she isn’t sure what she heard; could it truly be that it was Emily behind everything? Behind the assassination attempt?

“You were right, it was Emily, Emily was the one who chose me for the designated survivor, it was Emily that framed Aaron, Emily that tried to get me killed, Emily that helped Damian frame you, Emily that tried to kill you.” He stops, angry tears fall from his eyes burning his face. “It was all Emily.”

“I’m so sorry, Tom I’m so sorry.” She wraps her arms around his shoulders, he’s shaking, she doesn’t know if it’s from the cold, the anger or the pain he’s feeling right now but she tries to wrap her arms as tightly as she can to stop them.

“How could I have missed it Alex?” he whispers in her hair. “How could I have been so blind?” he pulls back, “She was right there! Hiding under my nose! I treated her like family.” He looks away, standing up and walking away from her, she feels cold, he literally slipped from her arms this time and she could do nothing. She stands up and walks to him, her hand grips his shoulder, “Tom, look at me, look at me baby,” he turns around, there’s such a turmoil in him right now, jumping from anger to sorrow to regret constantly. “She was a bad person, she was rotten all the way to the core, but this isn’t your fault there’s nothing you did wrong. You trusted her of course you did, we all did.” Her hands clutch tightly his against her chest, she’s determined not to let him slip away again, the feeling was terrible enough the first time.

“I brought her into our lives Alex and she played me like a damn fool!” he told her, his voice low, defeated, almost like he hates himself for trusting Emily. “I nearly lost you because of her.”

“Oh Tom.” She sees the reason why he hates himself “I know the feeling, I do, I nearly lost you because of her as well. But that’s not the point; the point is that she failed.” She squeezes his freezing hands, “She failed Tom, she failed in killing you or me, she failed in getting her agenda through, she just failed.” She lets go of his hands and he wraps them around her waist, she cups his face, “And we didn’t, we won, we’re still here, and she’s dead!” she tells him, a chuckle leaves his mouth, it makes Alex smile and she leans forward kissing him on the lips, his breath hot against her cheek as he hugs her close, “What would I do without you?” he asks.

“You’ll probably be only wearing a condom and a bowtie” the two of them start laughing hysterically almost, they tried stopping but couldn’t not until the tears in their eyes were such of happiness.

“We should get back,” She suggests, her hands are freezing, and so are his.

“Yeah, I have to inform the rest of the staff. Pick a new chief of staff too.” He helps her up from the bench and they start walking the long way back, “Are you thinking of anyone.” She asks him.

“Well, the one who deserved the job from the beginning.” There’s a cryptic smirk on his lips, one that Alex shares when, “You think he’ll take it?” she asks.

“I hope he will.”

* * *

 

At the end Tom decides not to talk to the staff that day given that it was nearly midnight when he and Alex got back to the cabin. He calls them in his office early the next morning though, “Hello everyone, the news I have for you today, are” he stops, he doesn’t have the exact words to describe them but there’s one that comes closer to all the feelings he has. “Well in one word terrible.”  

“About a week ago Hannah came to me with her suspicions about a traitor within our ranks, someone who was feeding Damian highly confidential material. Material that none in this room but Aaron has access to.” He sees Seth and Lyor looking around puzzled, Kendra and Aaron knowing where this was going they just sat back with their arms crossed over their chests. “I’m not going to drag it on. It was Emily. The mole, the traitor, was Emily. She was the one who had me appointed as the designated survivor, she was the one who helped Lozano plan and execute the botched assassination attempt, she was the one who tried to frame Aaron, she was the one threatening Langton, the one trying to frame Alex and the one who tried to kill her too.” He sees all of them in front of them having the same look of shock on their faces, even Aaron and Kendra, they might have known about the mole in the white house but they apparently never knew for sure who that person was or to what extent they were involved.  “I know this might be too hard to believe but sadly it’s true.”

“Emily?” Seth asks.

“Yeah.”

“I can’t believe it.” Lyor starts saying.

“Are we sure?” Seth interrupts

“We are Seth, we are.” Tom sees the emotions in Seth’s eyes raising, he knows that the young man, feels the betrayal much deeper than the rest his personal relationship with Emily clouding his judgment.

“She played me like a damned fiddle.” He whispers under his breath, Aaron puts a hand on his shoulder and gives him a squeeze.

“She played us all” Aaron tells him, Tom nods, “She did, Aaron I can I talk to you for a moment,” Tom excuses the rest of the staff “Of course sir.” He waits for them to close the door behind them as they leave and he turns to Aaron.

“Aaron you probably suspect what I want from you already.” He tells him, Aaron gives him a small smile nodding, “I have an idea sir.”

“I want you to be my chief of staff, this job was always yours.” He stops, “Will you?”

“Of course sir, it would be my honor.” Tom shakes his hand, “Thank you.”

“Thank you sir.”  He turns to leave but stops at the door, “If I may, we all are shocked and all. You know, from the news, how about we all take a day to get used to the new situation and then tomorrow we get back to business.” He suggests, Tom smiles, he was glad Aaron had suggested it, he had tried to get to work before the staff meeting but it was in vain.

“I think you’re right Aaron.”

“Good, tomorrow I’ll go over our staff openings and will have some suggestions for your National Security Advisor.” Tom nods, “Thank you Aaron.” He says leading the young man at the door.

* * *

 

“What happened?” Alex asks him as soon as he walks through the door.

“Aaron took the job.”

“That’s good.” She stands up and walks to him, he wraps his arm around her waist.

“Let’s spend the day together, maybe go hiking?” he suggests, Alex looks at him, he seems much better today than he did yesterday.

“I’ll go get the kids ready.”

“Thank you”

* * *

 

Aaron stood in front of the door to Hannah’s room for good ten minutes before getting the guts to knock, “Hey Hannah” he says walking inside the room, to his surprise she was alone, for the first time she getting to Camp David probably.

“Aaron, hey.” She smiles and pats the empty space on the bed next to her; he sits down next to her legs, after all how he could say no to this offer.

“How are you?” he asks her, she smiles, “Good, I’m sorry about Emily, I know you two” she stops biting her lip, “Had a thing” Aaron chuckles and hags his head low for a moment.

“Don’t worry, she wasn’t that important.” He smiles looking at Hannah, she looks at him, curiosity in her dark eyes. “Now that I think about it she never was who really held my heart after all.”

“Who was that one?” she asks. He wonders could she really be so oblivious, could he be so bad at sending signals?

“That’s for another day.” He decides no matter what the case was that this wasn’t for today, it wasn’t the issue she should be focused on while recovering.

“Do I know her?” she pushes him further, now Hannah is intrigued trying to mask the sting she felt when she heard that there was someone holding his heart.

“Yeah, you do.” The dreamy smile on his face stings her, “Lucky one.” She says through her teeth.

“I’m the lucky one.”

* * *

 

Kendra walks to the cabin she was sharing with Seth, Lyor and Aaron and sees Seth sitting on the living room, he was clutching a glass of tequila in his hand, “Seth?” she tries to get his attention but it’s like he can’t hear her, she walks closer and shakes him shoulder “Seth?”

“Kendra!” he looks up to her, shocked and startled that someone else was in the room with him.

“You ok?” she asks, she can see the red eyes, the dried tears down his cheeks, she knows he wasn’t ok, and she doesn’t know how could he be ok anyway?

“Seth she wasn’t worth it.” She tells him “You deserve better than her.”

“She still tricked me Kendra.” He leaves the glass down on the table and leans forward, “She broke my confidence, made me run after her like a little dog.” Kendra walks to the arm chair across from him and sits down, “I couldn’t see it then but I do now. She manipulated me, tangled my job in front of me threatening she’ll tell the president at every little thing I did wrong. That’s not how it’s supposed to work!” he stops, the realization of what was truly happening to him hitting him full force. “That’s not love, that’s control.”

“It’s abuse Seth, that’s abuse.” She reaches over and grips his hand.

“Abuse…” he repeats the word, it’s like he tries to learn how to spell it. “That’s what it feels like?”

“Abuse has many faces, some it’s physical, some it’s mental, some it’s both, some it’s getting yelled at because you bought the wrong toilet paper, some it’s being belittled for what you said or how you look.” She stops, finding herself getting carried away back to every asshole boyfriend she had in the past. “She was a manipulative bitch, plain and simple.”

“I never would have considered myself being in an abusive relationship.”Kendra nearly tells him that no one ever does but stops herself. “I guess she was a really good actress.”

“No, you were in love.” She tells him, “The rest of us saw it Seth. You just couldn’t.”

“I like talking to you, you know that?” he says smiling, Kendra feels the same rush she felt few days last week while in his office, she wonders why the hell his smile makes her heard skip many beats.

“That’s good, I like talking to you too.”  She sees him biting his lip, something almost primal washes over her for a moment, she just wants to grab him and bite him all over, marking her territory, even if it wasn’t really hers.

“We should do that more often then.” He says and it takes her breath away.

“We should.”

* * *

 

Aaron gets to work early the next morning, he starts looking over some of the documents he wanted, he noticed that the meetings were always too small and now he saw the reason why. To his terror most of the senior staff positions were either empty or filled by people with very, very little experience.

“Come on!” he shuts his laptop down, “Can’t believe this!”

* * *

 

“Sir, I wasn’t going to bother you so early but we have a lot of problems that need addressing stat.” Tom looks up, Aaron almost barged into the room, a look of anger mixed with disbelieve and frustration on his face.

“What is it Aaron?”

“Sir, the white house is running on reserve, your communications director is the junior assistant to the deputy communications director and I don’t need to remind you the mess we had when we last tried that. Not to mention all the other positions that are empty, Deputy chief of staff, Seth has only one deputy, he needs at least three, Communications director and deputy communications director, head speechwriter, Seth can’t do all, he’ll end up having a mental breakdown, we don’t have a national security advisor or a deputy national security advisor.” Tom tries to follow him but Aaron is getting more and more frustrated almost rumbling to himself. “Not to mention that all the senior assistant jobs are almost all empty. For goodness sake your body man is also doubling as an executive secretary.” Tom stops Aaron’s rumbling.

“Aaron, fix it.”

“Sir?”

“Don’t tell me, or ask me, just hire the people you want.” Aaron nods, he’s almost taken back by the president’s response. “Do you have names for National Security advisor?”

“As a matter of fact I do.”

“Tell me”

“Hannah sir.” Tom takes a step back, he hadn’t thought of Hannah, not so much because he didn’t trust her because he did but mostly because he never thought she would want a desk job. “She’s amazing, we worked closely a lot, she knows the job. As a matter of fact she was working as my defacto deputy.”

“I’ll talk to her.”

“Thank you sir.”

“Thank you Aaron.”

* * *

 

Tom decides to go and visit Hannah later the afternoon, he finds her sitting up on the bed a book in her hand, she folds the page and leaves the book on the bedside table when she sees him walking inside.

“Hannah, good to see you are better.”

“I am sir. I can even stand up.” She tells him jokingly.

“Truly remarkable.” He says smirking; she narrows her eyes at his comment, “Cheeky.” She says.

“I came here to offer you something.”He tries to find the right words to ask her what he wanted to. “Given that you figured out what was happening with Pax Americana, I would like to appoint you as my national security advisor.” She looks at him for a moment like he grew a second head. “Sir, are you sure?” she chuckles nervously, this makes Tom look at her like she grew a second head, he didn’t know that Hannah was even capable of producing such sound. “I am just an FBI agent.” She says, Tom shakes his head; of course she was going to try and undersell her achievements.

“Hannah, Aaron told me all those months you were pretty much his deputy.”

“Of course he did.” She says rolling her eyes, “Alright.”

“You’ll come on board?” Tom asks, a smirk on his face, “Yes sir.”

He stands up and shakes Hannah’s hand, he notices the burns from the rope have started slowly fading, “Thank you Hannah.” He tells her, a genuine smile appears on her face probably one of the very few times Tom has seen it in all the months he knows her.

“Thank you Mr. President.”

* * *

 

Aaron started pacing up and down nervously, he knows Lyor is the logical choice for his deputy but he can’t make his legs walk towards the quirky man, he takes a deep breath and walks in the room Lyor uses as his office.

“Lyor, I am sure I am going to regret this, but,” he bites his cheek, “Oh fuck.” He whispers, “Will you be my deputy chief of staff?”

“Work directly under you?” He asks, not taking his eyes off of the laptop he was working on, “What a delight.” He says with sarcasm dripping from his voice.

“Forget it I regret it already, you know what you’re fired that’s it.” Aaron turns around and starts walking out; he knew it would be horrible he just knew it before even suggesting it.

“Stop it, you’re not gonna fire your deputy chief of staff, especially not when he has already prepped a list of names to interview for all the open white house jobs.” Aaron stops at the door and turns around looking at the man offering him a folder with a smirk on his face, “You did?” he asks in surprise as he gets the folder.

“I had time.” Aaron takes a look of the names Lyor had gathered.

“Fine you can keep your job,” he says closing the folder, “Partner.”

Aaron smirks, Lyor finally raising his head from his laptop a mischievous smirk on his lips as well, “Sure thing boss”


	11. Epilogue

Hannah just finished her first briefing with the president as the national security advisor. “How does it feel being back?” Tom asks her when the meeting was over and Hannah started picking her things up.

“Much, much better sir.”

“I’m glad, have you found your deputy?” he asks her, going back and sitting down at his chair. Hannah stands up and walks closer to his desk smiling, “As a matter of fact yes.”

“Can I know?”

“Well I’m on my way to ask him, you’ll be the first call if he says yes.” Tom has an idea on who that someone might be but doesn’t say anything about it, “Good, I’ll be waiting then.” Hannah nodded and started leaving after Tom dismissed her, “Hannah,” she stops at the door and turns around, “It’s good to have you back.”

“It’s good to be back.”

* * *

 

Hannah walks back in the FBI building everything seemed to be painfully the same, getting off on Chuck’s floor she finds her friend in his new office, she smiles seeing him in his new office, John had given him a promotion in the electronic crimes division. He was now the second in command in the department. “Hey Chuck.” She says sneaking in the office, Chuck raises his head and smiles when he sees her there, “Hey Hannah, it’s been long.” She walks closer and gives him a hug.

“Yeah”

“What are you doing here?” he asks her, “Well I had a meeting with Kevin about the deputy job I told you.”

“Kevin David? Is he back from Afghanistan?” he asks.

“Yeah he is, honorably discharged.”

“Nice, what did he say?”

“I got a deputy.”

* * *

 

Alex studies Tom during dinner, he looks distracted but she doesn’t say anything, she waits until the kids are in bed and they are in their bedroom before asking him, “What’s bugging you?”

“I am thinking,” Tom leans back to the headboard and closes his eyes, “I don’t know.”

“You want to run again.” Tom opens his eyes and looks at Alex in surprise, “Don’t you?”

“I do.” He admits, Alex smiles, “Then what’s stopping you?”

“You, the kids,” He stops Alex when he sees her ready to complain, “Listen to me, the first time we were dragged into this world if I run it means we will willingly enter it. It’s not the same.” Alex smiles and uses her hands to cup his face, “Tom, you’re rumbling.” She says chuckling, “I already thought you were running, the kids thought too.”

“You did?” he seems shocked, probably not expecting this reaction from her, “Yes!”

“Oh.” He says, “You didn’t tell me”

Alex started laughing, “I thought you knew Tom!” she tells him, Tom chuckles, a smile slowly forming on his lips, “So you’re in?” he asks once more, almost scared that he heard wrong the first time, that somehow he misunderstood her words.

“Hell yeah.” She chuckles “I like being the first lady.” Tom rolls his eyes, “No you don’t, you hate it.”

“Well a bit.” She smirks, “I hate being asked for cookie recipes”

* * *

 

Seth was ready to leave when he saw the light in Aaron’s office still on, “What you’re doing here boss?” he asks, Aaron looks up from his desk and smiles at his friend standing there, “Seth, I’m looking for campaign staff.”

“Campaign staff?” Seth asks puzzled, “He’ll run?”

“I think so, any way I wanna be prepared.”

“ABP” Seth says smirking, remembers Langston saying it again and again in staff meetings he would hold.

“Always Be Prepared!” Aaron says, “Always be prepared.” Seth repeats.  

“It’s good to have you back in the rains.” Seth says after a few minutes of silence between the two of them, “It feels good too.”

* * *

 

“Hey, guys come in.” Tom stands awkwardly in front of his office seeing his staff walking inside the room awkwardly as well, he notices how significally fuller the room looks now, apart from Aaron, Seth, Lyor and Kendra, there are also his new Communications Director, Joanne Clark or Jo as most call her and Wayne Smith who joined just a few weeks ago as Jo’s deputy, Tom found himself liking them both a lot to his surprise. “You probably are speculating about the elections, I know the pundits do, so I wanted to gather you all here and let you know myself.” They all look at each other with a smirk, most guessing what he was about to tell them. “I have decided to run for another term and I’d be more than honored if I could have you all here to help me.”

“Sir, and I think I speak on behalf of the whole staff,” Aaron says with a large smile on his face, “There’s nowhere we would like to be more.” The rest just started nodding and smiling, Tom smiles awkwardly, “Thank you.” He says, “I feel honored” he bites his lip, “Now to business.”

“I can schedule a rally in one of the shelters here in D.C. for both you and the Vice President where you can announce your run.” Aaron says, Tom nods, it seems a bit quick to him but he knows that time is of essence at the moment.

“Run it by Ellenor’s staff and let me know, it sounds good.” He turns to the new members of his staff, “Jo, you and Wayne will handle the speech right?” Jo smiles and nods, “Of course sir.” She says.

“Thank you. Everyone thank you so much.”

* * *

 

“Today sir?” Ellenor asks him, Aaron had ran by her staff his plan on having them hold a town hall type of rally in one of the city’s still working shelters for some of the people whose homes were completely ruined.

“Yes Aaron is fast.”

“He is indeed.” She smiles, “In any case I will have my speechwriters prepare some remarks and I will join you on stage.” Tom smiles and takes her hand.

“Thank you Ellenor, taking this huge step with me it can’t be easy.” he says but Ellenor smiles, “On the contrary sir, this was the easiest step of my life.” Tom is shocked by her words, he remembers clearly her telling him that she wasn’t ready to be president and that she didn’t even want that, he thought choosing to enter the electoral race would be something that she might not want to do, apparently she was and he couldn’t be more thankful of that. “I’m going to inform Christopher for the rally. I assume Alex will be there too?”

“Yes, Penny and Leo as well.” She smiles, “Wonderful, I’ll get George then too.” She says, Tom smiles, “Great.” He says, Penny will sure appreciate it that George will be there, the two kids became good friends since meeting each other, “See you at the rally Ellenor.”

“See you there.”

* * *

 

Alex looks at Tom, he starts looking sicker the closer to the shelter “Well how are you feeling?”

“Like puking.”

“Please not in here.” Leo says not looking up from his phone.

“Leo!” Alex scolds him, “What?”

She heard Tom chuckling for her right side and turns around, “You enjoyed that?”

“It was funny.” He says, he takes a deep breath the car started slowing down reaching their destination, “I’m gonna fail, I know I will.”

Leo groans and puts his phone away, “Dad! Come on people like you.”

“Not enough.”

“I swear to god this better not be the next six months.” Leo mutters under his breath, Penny turns to her brother and tells him, “You'll be leaving for college it’s us you have to be sorry for.”

“Et tu Brute?”  Tom tells her, Penny giggles. Alex shakes her head, “Ok both of you stop teasing your father!” she tells her kids who just start giggling at each other, she turns to Tom who seems to be distracted right now, “Tom! You’ll be fine, ok just get in there, you’ll answer some questions, run the best campaign you can and the people will decide!” she takes his hand before he shreds his fingers, Tom turns to her, a small smile appearing on his lips, “Yes, yes I will.” He chuckles and leans forward kissing her close to her ear, whispering, “What would I do without you?”

“We’ve established that.” She tells him, he nods and turns to the kids, “Show time right?” he asks them, Penny nods and Leo tells him, “Show time!”

* * *

 

Most of the town hall went off without a hitch Ellenor and Tom mostly getting questions about the recovery efforts, Alex could see Aaron getting a bit restless he would have preferred someone from the crowd to ask Tom about running rather than the reporters that are waiting for questions.

“Mr.  President, Will you run?” Alex turns her head around and finds the man who asked she is around the middle of the room, a familiar man around his late fifties.

“Who’s asking?” Tom asks, he looks around trying to find the man, “Larry Daniels sir,” he says raising his hand, Tom locates him and smiles, “I lost my house in the hurricane, everything I got, but I still got my life.”

“I remember you, I think we met the first day I visited the city after the hurricane.” He says, Alex notices the people around then looking at each other shocked, they didn’t expect that Tom would remember someone he met in a shelter right after a terrible disaster, “They don’t dad do they?” Leo whispers to her “Nope.”

“You did sir.” The man says, she notices Tom looking at Ellenor sitting in the chair next to him, she shrugs smiling at him, “Well Mr. Daniels both the vice president and I have agreed that we will continue serving this great nation,” he stops, Alex sees the smile on his lips forming as he locates them in the crowd, “Until you guys kick us out.”

* * *

 

Tom walks in the cemetery, he doesn’t know what brought him here, he had just announced his campaign, the first polls seem positive as his whole staff kept telling him and he wanted to come here. He stops in front of her grave, it’s nothing of a simple grey concrete tombstone, her name engraved there, he notices there are no flowers in sight and chuckles, “I don’t know why I came over here.” He says, crossing his hands over his chest, “Why the hell I came to see you.” Tom pauses again; it seems as if he can’t get his thoughts in order long enough to say whatever he wanted to say.

“It bothers me; I trusted you and you stabbed me in the back. It bothers me.” He finally gets out, “Why the hell you did this? What made you change?” he kicks a rock at his feet away out of frustration, “Did I even knew you?” his question is met only with silence, he didn’t expect anything else to be honest but it still made him chuckle sadly, “I guess not. But I know you now. I know what you were and it’s nothing but a filthy scumbag.” He stops trying to take a breath.

“Why would you betray me like that? I treated you like a daughter. I put you in my house. Gave you the job you could only dream of!” his explosion scares him too, but all the emotions inside him are wrecking a havoc in his brain, “Why the hell did you betray me?” he doesn’t know why he keeps asking questions, he knows no one is answering them but his therapist suggested that he should get them off of his chest. “I guess I’ll never know. But I know this, and if you hear me listen close, I know that you got exactly what you deserved and I also know that you failed, because that’s all you ever were, a failure and a traitor!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the last chapter, thank you all so much for reading this story, there will be a sequel some time down the line as well as a lot of stories based on the episodes leading up to this.


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